Geodog

90% of programming today is knowing the API's

Joel of Joel on Software has an interesting article in which he argues that 90% of today's programming involves knowing which API's to call and how to call them. He says:

Very few people get to work on low level C algorithms that just move bytes around any more. Most of us spend all our time these days calling APIs, not moving bytes ... Someone who is a fantastic C++ coder with no API experience only knows about 10% of what you use every day writing code that runs on an API.

I had always believed the opposite, that it it is more important to be a really good programmer than what specific language/API you know. However, I have mostly worked with homemade/new operating systems, with people who do spend most of their days moving bytes around, and calling homemade API's. Maybe it is different when you are spending all day writing Windows applications -- in fact I suspect that it is. I guess this is one of the reasons that it is fun to stay on the cutting edge, and away from a deep knowledge of MFC. Worth reading.